Anyone care to discuss Mayor Bloomberg's STOP AND FRISK POLICY? Hope he has a LOT OF BILLIONS.

I do not like ANY of his policies.  And I will be happy to discuss why.  Here is policy number ONE.  HE LIED about it.  Not that he did it and is sorry he did it.  That is the rewritten scenario.  Stop and Frisk was already tried and denounced by New Yorkers loud and clear for decades and Bloomberg ignored it and them.  Why?  Because he is a BILLIONAIRE and he will do whatever HE THINKS is a good idea.  Then he spun it just this last few months when as early as this January, he still DEFENDED his stance on STOP AND FRISK. So this is not about whether it worked or not, HE KNEW IT DID NOT WORK, people were totally p.o.'d about this going into effect.  New Yorkers are very political and they are also very much NOT WHITE.   The stop and frisk law was already abolished once.  It was horribly abused and caused all kinds of horror stories for blacks and latinos.  Then Bloomberg lies and pretends that "a long time ago" he made a mistake.  He knew full well the ENTIRE issue.  

He's a freaking liar who does what he wants and makes sure his other Billionaire Bros like Beezos are taken care of.  Beezos has 250 Billion.  Bloomberg has 50.  Pretty good for two regular guys.  DO NOT TRUST BLOOMBERG

I can see how such a law could be abused, and especially abused in ways that are racist.

I have seen news broadcasts of US police targeting African and Latino Americans - searching them for weapons when there were none, no evidence to suggest that there might be a weapon - and even shooting dead when the person reaches for the ID in their pocket.
This kind of thing is not so much a problem with frisking itself. And before jumping to conclusions, let's question where the problem lies. Maybe there are two separate problems getting conflated/
The racism in the way the stop and frisks were targeted is clear. Racism is, by far, the biggest problem.
Basically, any candidate for a job with the police or justice system should be screened for racism. If someone slips through who is later discovered to have bias they should be re-educated and given a chance to redeem themselves - and if they don't they should be sacked.

I am not trying to say that stop and frisk is a good policy. It isn't.
Or rather, if it is to be lawful, it needs strict checks and balances.

In Australia, we have a similar problem at the moment with young people being frisked for drugs by police at festivals.
The sniffer dogs point out who to frisk - but it then turns out their noses have not correctly identified someone who was carrying drugs.
Of over 200 young people frisked, only 6 had small quantities of drugs. Most were girls who were under-age, searched without a responsible support person present. This was in itself illegal. The girls had to strip naked and squat in front of female officers to prove they carried nothing internally. They were as traumatised as if they'd been assaulted. The policemen who did this have been sacked. There are two campaigns running now: one to give the officers better training, the other to get the law changed.

But in the U.S., you do tend to get a lot of massacres in schools and public places. It's become so common that it no longer creates the huge reactions that it used to.
Strip and search could work with kids who've been boasting their dark intentions on the net, with terrorists who've been groomed on the net, and so forth.
I'm saying that strip and search should never apply to just any citizen - but that there can be good reasons to search someone when there is clear evidence of their intention to cause serious harm to others.
All it takes is clear legislation and proper training for law enforcers.

I would like to draw attention to the specifics of my language.

At this stage, I think it's too soon to either trust or distrust Bloomberg.
Now is the time to carefully examine all the reports of everything he's done in public life so far. This post was edited by inky at November 28, 2019 5:23 PM MST